


Resituation

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [17]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 18:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14002437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “How did you even meet a guy when you don’t do anything but that stupid camp—” Erin says, then, “Oh mygod.”Please don’t —“You’re datingBryce Marcus?” she yelps.“May I be excused?” Jared asks weakly.“Yes,” his dad says.“No,” his mom counters. “Finish your dinner.”





	Resituation

It’s like Jared’s parents don’t want him to be happy or something, because before Bryce picks him up the next afternoon, he’s informed that being home for dinner is mandatory, because it’s ‘Sunday dinner’. It’s never been mandatory _before_ — dinner Sunday is basically the same as dinner any other day of the week — so Jared has a feeling this is maybe a Bryce related request. Well, not request. Jared knows better than to believe it’s a request.

Bryce drops him off right before dinner, Jared’s body somehow simultaneously loose and yet still humming with his touch. Jared really, really hopes his face isn’t displaying that like a banner, all ‘hey guess what, parental units, I just had an orgasm in another person’s hands for the third time ever and it is not only way, way better than my own hand, but it was better than the two times yesterday too.’

That was probably because Bryce had been as good as his word, and there was something different about doing it on a bed, not just like, psychologically, though it felt more — fitting? romantic, even though that’s a ridiculous word? — but also just from a logistical purpose. Lube was adjacent, and a handjob with lube is about a hundred times better than lotion, and a million times better than dry. There was more room to manoeuvre than on the couch, and way more than in the car. Plus Bryce’s bed is made of clouds or something, makes his stupidly comfortable couch seem uncomfortable by comparison, and once again Jared would have been totally content to live there forever. 

Obviously, however, that wasn’t possible, because ‘Sunday dinner’. Which Jared would like to repeat has never been a thing before in his entire life.

Dinner starts out okay, if annoying, his parents discussing his nana, who his mom’s been visiting pretty much every weekend since she threw out her hip last winter, trading off with his aunts; one of his dad’s colleagues who seems like a total shitshow; trying and failing to get more than a grunt out of Erin, who’s been trying on the whole teen angst thing since basically the second she turned thirteen, like the number alone triggered a need to speak only in a monotone when speaking at all and refuse to wear anything other than black.

Now Jared wonders if that was an attempt to fool him into complacency or something, because before Jared’s even halfway through his pasta, his mom says, “How’s Bryce?”

Jared fucking swears he can see Erin’s ears perk up at the question, all pointy, like the ears of the devil. Well, maybe those are more accurately horns, but Jared stands by Erin being the devil.

“Fine?” Jared says. “Good.”

“Who’s Bryce?” Erin asks. _Now_ she has to suddenly have interest in something other than nihilism. Of course. Erin’s interests: eating, sleeping, sulking, watching Jared crash and burn.

And he is totally about to crash and burn, because there is no good answer to that question.

“Um,” Jared says. “A guy I know?” He feels guilty for diminishing things like that, but Bryce would understand if he ever met Erin.

Not that it even works.

“Wait, do you have a boyfriend?” Erin asks. “Since when?”

“Um,” Jared repeats. 

“Ooh, dad winced,” Erin says, with the most enthusiasm he’s seen from her in months. “Why’d dad wince? What’s wrong with _Bryce_?”

Jared hates the way she says his name, with simultaneous glee and mockery. And yes, it’s a stupid name, but Jared has grown…fond of it. Mostly because of the guy attached to it, admittedly.

“Can I — plead the fifth?” Jared asks, and his dad nods through the wince, so thankfully it appears he wants Erin to know about this about as much as Jared does.

“No,” Erin says. “Because we’re not American.”

Jared’s pretty sure there’s a way to avoid self-incrimination in Canada as well, but he has to give her the point there. Fucking smartass.

“He’s…older?” Jared tries weakly. That’s one of the issues, at least.

“How much older?” Erin asks. She has this uncanny ability to find the jugular and then lunge straight for it. Jared figures she’s going to be a lawyer or something someday. “Like are we talking guy in university or are we talking guy with grey hair?”

“He’s twenty, oh my god, Scare-in,” Jared says. He swears his mom looks like she’s enjoying this.

“How did you even meet a guy when you don’t do anything but that stupid camp—” Erin says, then, “Oh my _god_.”

Please don’t —

“You’re dating _Bryce Marcus_?” she yelps.

“May I be excused?” Jared asks weakly.

“Yes,” his dad says.

“No,” his mom counters. “Finish your dinner.”

Jared shoots his dad a beseeching look, and he grimaces back, but in a way that says, ‘you want to leave the table anyway, it’s your funeral.’

“Didn’t he go to _jail_?” Erin asks.

“No,” Jared says, then, “Mom, please—”

“I thought you might want some practice explaining your relationship,” she says, because she is _evil_. No wonder Erin’s the devil, she probably got it from _mom_.

Jared, instead, shovels his food into his mouth as fast as he can without choking on it, pointing at his mouth as Erin barrages him with questions, which no one can argue with, because no talking with your mouth full is an ironclad Matheson Rule.

“Dinner was great,” Jared says as he pushes his chair back, though he didn’t actually have the time to taste it. “Gotta go.”

“Pussy,” Erin calls after him, and Jared can hears identical chiding ‘Erin’s from his parents as he flees to his room. 

*

Erin’s already at the table when Jared comes down for breakfast the next morning, which is flat out weird, since she spends the entire summer break ‘catching up on sleep’, her words. No one needs as much sleep as Erin gets. She basically becomes like a koala. Are koalas the ones who sleep a million hours a day? Jared’s unsure. He’d compare her to a cat, but he _likes_ cats.

Huh, maybe comparing Bryce to a cat even though they have about zero similarities was an early sign.

Erin’s drinking OJ while ostentatiously reading some computer print out. Jared’s not going to ask.

She loudly highlights something as Jared pours himself Wheaties. Jared didn’t know you could loudly highlight something, but apparently you can.

“Hmm,” Erin says loudly as Jared goes to grab the milk. 

Ignore her, ignore her —

“Oh,” Erin says loudly.

“Okay, what?” Jared snaps.

“How bad is .15 BAC?” Erin asks.

Jared marches over and snatches the paper from her hands, which ends up being a print out of the Calgary Sun article about Bryce’s arrest, liberally highlighted in places.

“Oh my god, I hate you,” Jared says, and brings it straight to the trash.

“You have to recycle paper,” Erin says.

“You have to fuck off,” Jared says.

“Mom,” Erin yells. “Jared just told me to fuck off.”

“What?” his mom calls back, and Jared escapes to his room again. “Pussy!” Erin calls after him once again, but Jared will happily take being called a pussy over sticking around to face his mom right now.

*

Camp has never been such a relief. Like, even when Jared was practically vibrating with the need to see Bryce — and Jared’s going to be real with himself here: that hasn’t really gone away — it wasn’t a sanctuary, just an excuse to see him. Now? A Matheson-free zone? (Well, with one obvious exception). Perfect.

Jared gets there painfully early, but sitting outside with his phone’s better than sticking around at home, and he’s made some nice improvements to his vault in Fallout Shelter by the the shuttle bus drops Raf and the other out of towners off.

“How’re you?” Raf asks.

“Uuuuugh,” Jared says.

Raf blinks. “Are things okay with—”

“You’re an only child, right?” Jared asks.

“Yeah?” Raf says.

“I hate you,” Jared says.

Raf pats his shoulder, clearly not taking any offence. “Wanna talk about it?” he asks.

“You’re a living saint, Rafael Sanchez, I hope you know that,” Jared says, and then, “Aww,” when Raf gets this ‘aw shucks’ bashful expression on his face, looking like he’s about to stick his hands in his pockets and scuff his toe in the dirt or something. Raf’s girlfriend better know she has a keeper.

Jared’s gotten to breakfast, and the loud highlighting — “How does someone loudly highlight something?” Raf asks, and it’s still a very good question with no explanation other than that Erin has evil supernatural powers — when Bryce gets arrives, half jogging toward the bench they’re at before wrapping an arm around Jared’s chest from behind.

“Not subtle!” Jared says, prying his arm off, and refuses to crack when Bryce pouts at him. 

“How was dinner?” Bryce asks, and Raf patiently listens to the story all over again, like the very best of bros.

*

The last week of camp flies by. Jared spends as little time at home as possible, which ends up being almost the same amount of time as last week, since the ‘home by dinner’ thing hasn’t budged, but as much time in his room as possible, because Erin has made it her life's mission to bug him about Bryce. The rest of his time is early escapes and fiddling on his phone while waiting for Raf to arrive, time at camp, which is taken up by an impromptu shinny tournament to cap out the month, and a lot of time at Bryce’s, though still not as much as he wants.

The final day dawns clear and unexpected, and Jared’s suddenly confronted, out of nowhere, with the fact that it’s ending, that these guys are going to scatter across Western Canada. That’s mostly no big deal, really, except he’s going to miss Raf, and he has absolutely no idea if Bryce is going to be one of the guys scattering. Probably something he should have asked.

Most of the out of town guys are staying another night, and from what Jared’s heard there’s a party going on tonight — not that he’s been invited to it — but Raf’s getting picked up by his girlfriend practically the second camp lets out. Well, he’s supposed to be, at least, but Evanson lets it out right before lunch, and rather than get on the bus back to the dorms, Raf accepts Jared’s offer to grab lunch.

“I’ll swing by yours after, you baby,” Jared says to Bryce, who’s visibly sulking that Jared’s not getting into his car, and drives them to a nearby mall with a decently priced all day breakfast place.

Raf orders an egg white omelette and a side of fruit, which is the least surprising thing in the world, and almost (almost) makes Jared feel bad about ordering extra bacon with his standard breakfast. When they tuck in Jared drags his crust through his eggs and considers asking Raf to like, keep in touch or something. He doesn’t want to be all lame, like ‘can I text you or nah?’ or, even worse ‘we’re friends, right, this isn’t like just camp friends? We’re real friends?’ 

He’s sure Raf has tons of friends. Like, team friends, not just teammates he chills with during the season and doesn’t really talk to outside of it like Jared has, guys he’s sure he’ll lose touch with basically the minute they no longer share a locker room. Jared remembers his mom’s ‘nice to see you making friends’, and yeah, maybe he’s not actually the best at it.

But he thinks they are friends, not just like…situational friends. Was there a situational aspect to it? Obviously, because they were stuck together for a month, but Raf could have chosen someone else to stick with, and Jared knows he has to have been at least a little annoying about the whole Bryce thing, and Raf stuck around anyway. That’s real friends, right?

He’s demolished his plate before he thinks of some halfway casual way to bring it up.

“Play each other a few times this season,” Jared says.

“Yeah,” Raf says.

“We’ll kick your ass,” Jared says, “And then I’ll buy you a drink or something.”

Raf wrinkles his nose.

“Like a smoothie, you nerd,” Jared says. “I’m not even legal until the postseason.” And he sure as hell won’t be drinking if the Hitmen are in it. Possibly more likely if they’re not, but he’s not thinking about that. They made it this year, they’ll make it again, and Jared knows scouts pay a ton of attention to the postseason, and that if you make a good impression that close to the draft, you can jump up by entire rounds. He had a teammate who was ranked somewhere like 150 get drafted in the third round last month, after scoring practically every single game and dragging everyone with him all the way to the second round, despite the fact they were stuck using their backup goalie, and he was leaking goals like a sieve.

“Sounds good,” Raf says, then, “But we’re going to be kicking your ass.”

“Loser buys the winner a smoothie?” Jared asks, and Raf solemnly reaches over the table to seal the deal with a handshake.

Jared doesn’t want to make it all weird and needy by saying anything else, so he drops Raf off back at the arena, taking Raf at his word — at least the third time he insists — that he’s cool to wait with a book he’s got stowed in his bag until Grace gets there.

“Seriously,” Jared says, “I can—”

“Go see your boyfriend,” Raf says, laughing a little, and Jared gives him a bro hug, lets it linger a little longer than he usually would.

“Drive safe, dude,” Jared says, and Raf gives him a little salute.

Bryce is vegetating on the couch when Jared gets to his — well, he has to let Jared in, but the delivery cartons in front of the TV tell a story, and Jared’s happy to join him, nabbing a spring roll, because he may have just eaten, but you don’t ignore a spring roll opportunity when you get one. Then some beef and broccoli, because ditto. Oh, and Bryce got hot and sour soup even though he doesn’t like it — terrible taste, Marcus — so Jared’s obligated to eat that, and — Jared is totally not eating dinner tonight. 

Jared’s phone buzzes while he’s dozing through a food coma, head on Bryce’s shoulder as Bryce plays some shooter one-handed, and he forgets to check it until he’s back home, kind of hungry again. He hopes this means another growth spurt. He’s finally passed the six foot mark, but he definitely wouldn’t say no to another inch or three.

 _Home safe_ , Raf’s sent with a smiley, and Jared sends a smiley right back before sitting down for meal three.


End file.
